


So Real These Voices in My Head

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: Suilad Aran Thranduil [39]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Isolation, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 04:51:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3715750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He claws at his skin with his mangled fingers until he can’t tell whether the blood is from his weapons or his wounds, until he can’t remember why there is meant to be a difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Real These Voices in My Head

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd already put this up here. Apparently not.

They don’t touch him. Not once. They don’t touch him, the damage done to his body he does to himself. They don’t touch him.

* * *

_“I know the glow was your hair reflecting the light of the sun, but even now I would stand before Eru and swear the light came not from Anor but from you.”_

* * *

They do not touch him. Not once. They do not touch him, yet he screams like they are murdering him. He screams like they are hurting him. They do not touch him.

* * *

_“I did not cry when you died, naneth, not because I did not love you, but because I knew it would break your heart to be the cause of my tears.”_

* * *

They don’t touch him. Not once. They don’t touch him, he claws at the door until his fingers bleed and then he claws some more. The only one who spills his blood is him. They don’t touch him.

* * *

_“A crown of thorns and meadow saffron to sit prettily upon my head. Beautiful and deadly, that was your last gift to me, father. A great forest, beautiful and green at first glance, dying from the inside out. That was your last gift to me, father. A kingdom of might and magic, poisonous and poisoned, that was your last gift to me, father. I confess I would rather have died in your place than endure that, but endure I did.”_

* * *

They do not touch him. Not once. They do not touch him, he feels and does not feel the ghosts of fingers brushing against his face and he knows and does not know that they are not real. They do not touch him.

* * *

_“When I was a boy, I lived in Doriath. Sometimes I would sit at Melian’s heel and learn all that she would deign to teach me. After my mother died, it was to Melian that I would run when I was scared, I’d hide in her skirts while she sent Thingol off to slay the monsters who scared me. I was scared the day Doriath fell, but I did not run to Melian. The monsters had slain Thingol and we were already hiding behind Melian’s skirts, so to speak, but none of us were safe. When Doriath fell it took my naïveté with it.”_

* * *

They don’t touch him. Not once. They don’t speak to him. Not once. He tells them he will not break. He swears he will not crumble. They never touch him.

* * *

_“This world is not one in which a child should have to endure. But you did. Of course you did, how could you not? You are my son.”_

* * *

He claws at his skin with his mangled fingers until he can’t tell whether the blood is from his weapons or his wounds, until he can’t remember why there is meant to be a difference.

* * *

_“Don’t touch me.”_

* * *

He cries until his eyes are so swollen he cannot open them. He screams until he has no voice left and then he screams some more.

* * *

_“I’m not going to fade, mellon, I did not fade when my mother died. I did not fade when my father died. I did not fade when my wife died. If I would not fade for them I will not fade for myself.”_

* * *

Light breaches his prison. He cries and cowers away from it. Someone steps into the light, someone he thinks he knows. They reach for him, he flinches and pulls away. They do not touch him.

* * *

_“I never wanted the throne either, my child, but sometimes we do not have say in what happens to us.”_

* * *

They call to him. They make sounds he thinks he should know, thinks he should remember, but he does not. The only sounds he knows are the sounds of his own screams. The sound of his breath stuttering from his lips. The sound of his heart beating in his chest. He does not know these sounds that this person makes.

* * *

_“I did my duty. For my people. I swear I did my duty.”_

* * *

He does not remember them touching him. Yet he knows they must have, because he does not remember leaving that room of his own power. Surely they touched him. They will not touch him now. They do not understand.

* * *

_“I’m losing my mind. My wife has been dead two thousand years. Her hand on my own is as warm and soft as I remember it.”_

* * *

In the cell, they did not touch him. Not once. In his freedom, they do not touch him. Not once. ‘Please’ he wishes to scream at them, ‘I am already broken. Pick me up, put me back together.’ But he does not say any of that. He does not say anything at all.

* * *

_“Isolation. My destruction is to be of my own making. Isolation. I’m to tear myself apart. And I will.”_

* * *

They do not touch him, not even when he cries. They do not touch him, not even when he screams. ‘You don’t understand.’ He wants to tell them, but he cannot remember the words.

* * *

_“So very strange. I cannot stand the thought of them touching me, but the thought of them not makes me cry.”_

* * *

Someone accidentally touches him. An arm brushing against his own. He cries and latches on. He will not let go. He will not. ‘I’m sorry’ someone says to him, and those two sounds he does understand, it’s all he’s heard since they freed him, but they sound different now. ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t know.’ And they don’t make him let go. They don’t. He breaks, but they help him put the pieces back together.

* * *

_“My name is Thranduil Oropherion. I am a father and I love my son very much. I am a king and I love my people very much. None of this matters now.”_


End file.
